


What Wasn't Seen

by Striker



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Gen, Sort of pre Sabriel, Spoilers for Hammer of the Gods, The French Mistake, canon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-22
Updated: 2012-08-22
Packaged: 2017-11-12 15:30:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/492762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Striker/pseuds/Striker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He knew it was a bad idea, but that had obviously never stopped him before.</p><p>For the prompt: "okay so if someone could write a ‘missing scene’ fic for The French Mistake where Sam looks up/otherwise finds Hammer of the Gods and watches Gabriel’s final stand/death scene? That would be awesome." by thirtyspells on tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Wasn't Seen

He knew it was a bad idea, but that had obviously never stopped him before.

Still, it took him a couple hours and a lot of pacing after the most-incredibly-awkward-we-will-never-EVER-speak-of-this-again night with Rub-…Genevi- Gen (Dean was going to give him crap for that _forever)_ before Sam finally sat himself down in front of the enormous (really?) TV and slid the DVD into the player. He cringed a bit as the main menu came up, the unreality and strangeness of seeing his and Dean’s faces on the screen almost too much for even him, but he had to do this. He had to know.

They owed at least that much to Gabriel.

Sitting alone in front of a screen showing a disturbingly accurate portrayal of his and Dean’s lives was by far the strangest thing that had ever happened to Sam. Including the Convention. It was like the strongest sense of Déjà vu in history and he went through a couple of episodes with an expression of horrified fascination on his face. Like a seeing train-wreck he just couldn’t stop watching, and it was with a sense of almost relief that he finally came upon the extremely familiar sequence of him and Dean driving up to a hotel claiming _Elysian Fields_ in blue neon. At least after this he could turn the TV off. Christ.

As he watched his life play out on screen Sam briefly considered about why he hadn’t grabbed Dean to watch this, too. But Dean, for all his bluster and burial of feelings, took the fact that people died for them even harder than Sam. Sam, who had had a little easier of a time coming to terms with the death of Gabriel, especially when followed by Ellen and Jo, still felt the crippling guilt but felt he had paid at least some of his dues after everything. Besides, he didn’t think Dean had ever really forgiven Gabriel for what he had put Sam through, even if _Sam_ had (mostly). He thought he could handle this better than Dean, that it would be satisfying the morbid curiosity and that he could finally put Gabriel truly to rest in his head.

He had thought wrong.

Sitting with cheeks wet and an impossible tightness in his chest as he saw Gabriel confront Lucifer for the first time in millennia, Sam had the passing thought that it was a good thing he didn’t seek out the episode dealing with Ellen and Jo’s deaths if he was reacting this badly to seeing the killing of an archangel who had abused them more than helped them. 

But was that really true? Sam couldn’t help the watery quirk of his lips as Gabriel – snarky bastard to the end – mouthed off to Lucifer even in the face of what he must have known would be his own death. In his own way Gabriel had tried to help them even as much as Ellen, Jo, Bobby, Castiel, and everyone else had. They would never had succeeded if not for the tip-off to the horsemen’s rings. And Sam had eventually realized Gabriel’s intent at the Mystery Spot, even if he would never agree with the angel’s methods. If he had had the time after finally joining their side, Gabriel would probably have tried to helped a lot more.

Through slightly blurred vision Sam watched the Gabriel on the screen mimic what must have really happened, and even through the actor’s translation Sam saw the love and sadness Gabriel had for Lucifer, the tragedy that was his own family’s directionless hatred, the hopelessness towards the mindless fighting that had led to him to abandon his own kin.

No, not abandon, Sam thought as Gabriel was run through – run away. Leaving because it hurt too much to watch. And then returning to do what was right when he was most needed. And in the very end, sacrificing himself to save everyone. Perhaps Lucifer wasn’t the archangel Sam was most like after all. 

Though the effects on the screen could never truly mimic the horrible but astonishing way an angel died, it was still so painfully close to how Gabriel’s face must have crumpled in (emotional, physical) pain and begin to glow as he disintegrated inside his vessel. Sam could hardly stand it until he saw Gabriel sprawled on the floor, his beautiful wings turned to ash, and Sam paused the DVD with shaking hands to stare at the sight, unwilling to look away. It was the closest he could come to knowing Gabriel’s last moments. His last stand. His final ‘fuck you’ to his family even as he wished desperately to have everything be better again. And Sam sat and stared with wet cheeks as he wished that there had been something – anything – that he and Dean could have done to help him, to keep him alive, to have somehow _brought him back_ (though Sam had researched as much as he could about angel resurrection. However he was no God and there was nothing he could do). He wished that they had had the time to really integrate Gabriel into Team Free Will; imagine the kind of asset he would have been.

Imagine the kind of friend he might have been.

Sam finally turned off the DVD and the TV and sat in the silent room, face buried in his hands, body trembling with regret, and he never felt the soft breath of fingers brushing his hair in comfort.

**Author's Note:**

> So I don’t really write all that much I hope this was not too incomprehensible and at least decent. The prompt just wouldn't leave me alone and suddenly I had a complete drabble so I supposed I would post it. This was supposed to be more Sabriel-y. Think of it as Pre-Sabriel? Pre-what-could-have-been-Sabriel? Also I don’t actually own any of the DVDs nor have I watched them so I don’t actually know if you see their faces on the main menu /shrugs. Beta'd only by me, if there is anything truly terrible please let me know.


End file.
